In the Middle Ages, Ceremonial Magic was openly practiced by many high dignitaries of the Christian Church. (See also the chapter on Ceremonial Magic.) This was a time when the Church was mercilessly persecuting people for being Witches. However, since Ceremonial Magic was regarded as a practice rather than a religion, it was not viewed as being counter to the Church teachings and a blind eye was turned to those who performed it.
There was great rivalry between the magicians, who usually worked alone and jealously guarded the methods of operation they perfected. To safeguard the results of countless years of work, many magicians would write the most important parts of their grimoires, or books of magic, in secret, “magical” alphabets. This way, if the book was ever stolen, the thief would not necessarily be able to perform the work it had taken so many years for the magician to perfect.
Various magical alphabets were used to preserve this secrecy. They had such titles as Angelic, Enochian, Malachim (or Language of the Magi), Ogham, Passing the River, and Theban. Various of the runic alphabets were also employed, as were Egyptian hieroglyphics.
But perhaps the more important reason for using the magical alphabets was power: power that the magician could put into his book and into the talismans and other instruments he used. Everything used had to be powerful enough to protect the magician from the wrath of the entities he summoned. If using ordinary, everyday writing, overfamiliarity would bring about a tendency to scribble down what was to be recorded without really thinking about the actual writing itself; the formation of the individual letters. But if using an alphabet with which he was not too familiar, the magician would really have to concentrate on the actual forming of every letter. In this way, according to the old grimoires, he would be putting his energies, his “power” or mana, into that writing.
This was especially important in the writing used on such things as talismans, for the more power that went into the making of a talisman, the better; the more protective it would be. Magical alphabets were therefore used both for secrecy and for directing energy into what was being written.
Some of these magical alphabets are still used by modern-day magicians and Witches. However, many who use them have forgotten, or are ignorant of, the original reasons for their use. They will try to impress others by showing their proficiency with, for example, Theban, writing it as rapidly as they would everyday English. Doing this, however, actually shows tremendous ignorance, since it defeats the whole purpose of using the magical writing.
In the making of talismans, magicians will often utilize what are known as magic squares. A magic square is an arrangement of numbers, in the form of a square, where every row and column, plus both diagonals, add up to the same number, called the constant. Each number may only appear once in the square. These magic squares were originally used in ancient India and China, and were introduced into Europe early in the Christian era. Sometimes letters are used instead of numbers, and then one of the magical alphabets is utilized.
Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), whose real name was Heinrich Cornelis, constructed seven different magic squares that he aligned with the seven planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. These have become standards in ritual magic. The Saturn square is probably one of the oldest, being found in the Chinese I Ching. Its constant is 15. Agrippa founded several secret magical societies and wrote a number of books on magic.
Francis Barrett, in his The Magus (1801), Eliphas Levi, in Transcendental Magic (1896), and others, followed the lead of Agrippa, employing magic squares for a variety of purposes, from protection in childbirth to making a man powerful. In S. L. MacGregor Mathers’s translation of The Book of Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage, published in 1932, the book shows a large number of magic squares for many different purposes, the majority comprised of letters rather than numbers. These are arranged so that the words read the same from the left, right, downward, and upward. One of these, known as the Sator formula—from the first word across the top of the square—was discovered engraved on old drinking vessels and on fragments from a Roman villa near Cirencester, England (see illustration at the end of this chapter).
Great care is necessary when constructing magic squares. Usually drawn on parchment, the lines should be marked in black ink with the numbers or letters in red ink. The red should not touch the black anywhere. All should be drawn with the parchment set up so that the maker’s shadow does not fall on the work.
Magical Alphabets
Angelic, or Celestial
This magical alphabet was so-called because it was thought to tie in with the placing of the stars.
Enochian
The Enochian magical alphabet comes from the system of magic introduced by Dr. John Dee (Astrologer Royal to Queen Elizabeth I) in the sixteenth century. It became a part of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and was used by such magicians as Aleister Crowley. Enochian is interesting in that the alphabet appears unrelated to any previous lettering system and the language has its own unique grammar.
Malachim, or Language/Writing of the Magi
Ogham, or Bethluisnuin
Ogham (pronounced OH-yam), or Ogam (Ohm), was originally used by the early Celts and their priests, the Druids, and was probably developed between the second and third centuries c.e., though some Celtic scholars believe it to be far older. It was used mainly on boundary markers and on grave stones, carved into the stone or wood along an edge, hence the center line. It was read from top to bottom and left to right. There are 369 verified examples of Ogham writing surviving today.
Passing the River
Theban, or Honorian
Runes, Anglo-Saxon—Ruthwell
There are many variations on the runes, the three main types being Germanic, Scandinavian, and Anglo-Saxon.
Each of these, in turn, has variations. (See also the chapter on Runic symbols.) Shown here is the Ruthwell variation of the Anglo-Saxon runes.
Magic Squares
Square of Saturn
Square of Jupiter
Square of Mars
Square of the Sun
Square of Venus
Square of Mercury
Square of the Moon
Sator Square
Typical of magical squares using letters rather than numbers is the so-called Sator square, shown here with letters and also with those letters written using the Theban alphabet. It has been suggested that the Sator square is based on the letters of the Christian Pater noster (The Lord’s Prayer), but there is no real evidence of that. Also shown is the Milon square (done in letters and in runes), which allows its maker to “know all things past and future,” according to The Book of Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage. It is possibly derived from the Hebrew MLVN, which is “a diversity of things or matters.”
Sator Square
Milon Square